Dehydrin (IPR000167)

Short name:
Dehydrin

Overlapping homologous superfamilies

None.

Family relationships

None.

Description

A number of proteins are produced by plants that experience water-stress.
Water-stress takes place when the water available to a plant falls below a
critical level. The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) appears to modulate the
response of plant to water-stress. Proteins that are expressed during water-
stress are called dehydrins [PMID: 2562763, PMID: 1387328]. Dehydrins contribute to freezing stress tolerance in plants and it was suggested that this could be partly due to their protective effect on membranes [PMID: 15356392].

Dehydrins share a number of structural features. One of the most notable
features is the presence, in their central region, of a continuous run of
five to nine serines followed by a cluster of charged residues. Such a region
has been found in all known dehydrins so far with the exception of pea
dehydrins. A second conserved feature is the presence of two copies of a
lysine-rich octapeptide; the first copy is located just after the cluster
of charged residues that follows the poly-serine region and the second copy
is found at the C-terminal extremity.